United States. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a new standard with regulations to improve the energy efficiency of linear fluorescent lamps, which is expected to save more than $15 billion in electricity by 2030.
These types of luminaires are still widely used in both homes and offices; in fact, according to DOE data they are used for an average of 4,000 hours in the commercial environment and 4,500 hours in the industrial sector each year.
On average each commercial building has about 300 lamps of this type, so it is not surprising that they represent 60% of the total energy consumed by both commercial and industrial buildings in the United States.
The standard will become effective in 2018, and basically requires manufacturers of fluorescent lights that from that date all their products are 4% more efficient compared to those that are available in the market today.
